“I have a knack for suppositions. For example, in about ten seconds that man next to us-his name is Emin Kazanjian-is going to walk to the toilet. But he won’t make it to the toilet.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just watch.”
Zrinka closes her eyes as if there’s no need to see, and Libarid looks over just as the nervous man sets aside his Bible and gingerly takes his briefcase from under the seat. He carries it slowly toward the bathroom in the front of the plane. Just before he reaches it, though, he stops and turns around, looking at faces. At that moment, three men, spread throughout the plane, get up as well and move to the aisles.
Libarid, understanding now, allows himself a curse: “Oh shit.”
That’s when Emin Kazanjian shouts.
“Your attention, everyone! This plane is being taken over by the Army of the Liberation of Armenia!”
Everyone gasps. The three other men pull out handguns.
The hijacker raises his briefcase. “There’s a bomb in the baggage compartment, and I’m holding the detonator. So no one move!”
Despite all this activity, what Libarid notices is that Zrinka’s eyes are still closed. Then she whispers:
“See what I told you?”
Gavra
Captain Gavra Noukas blinked a few times in the early morning darkness. Someone was banging on his door. Face in the pillow, he first saw the dirty hotel glass on the bedside table and caught the rough scent of so many crushed cigarettes. The banging continued. He raised his head, but slowly because of the hangover. “Wait!” he called.
From the other side of the door came the old man’s voice. “We’re late, Gavra. I told you before. Four o’clock.”
Beside him in the small bed, the young, handsome Turk from last night shifted, muttering in English, “What the hell is that?”
“Quiet.” Gavra held a finger to his lips and slipped into his underwear. He opened the door a couple of inches. In the bright corridor stood a short, graying old man with three moles on his cheek. “I’ll be out in a minute, Comrade Colonel.”
The old man’s expression betrayed none of his feelings. “Get some clothes on. Now. I’ll be in the car.”
He closed the door and rubbed a hand through his hair. As the young man sat up, the sheets fell from his thin, pale chest, revealing the long white scar Gavra had discovered last night while undressing him. At the time he’d hardly noticed it. “Who the fuck’s that?” the Turk insisted.
“I have to go to work,” said Gavra. “Which means you have to go as well.”
“At four o’clock in the morning?” The young man pouted with a certain effeminacy and aura of desperation that Gavra found revolting. “We can’t even have a coffee together?”
Gavra threw him his underwear.
Quietly, the young man said, “It’s a long walk home.”
So Gavra tossed some Turkish lira on the bed as well. “Come on, let’s move.”
He might have been kinder to the young man, but the fact was that Gavra couldn’t remember his name.
Colonel Brano Sev leaned against the rented blue Renault just down the narrow, cobbled street from the Hotel Erboy, smoking. When he saw Gavra step out of the lobby into the warm early dawn, he climbed in and revved the engine.
As the car lurched and trembled over stones, he said, “This isn’t the kind of behavior I expect, Gavra.”
“I should have set my alarm.”
Brano shook his head, and Gavra noticed he was looking slightly different. Over the last year of Gavra’s apprenticeship, largely at his urging, Brano had gradually acquiesced to sideburns. Gray and thick. Brano said, “I mean picking up girls, Gavra. There was someone else in your bed. I could see her moving.”
Gavra opened his mouth but then thought better of it.
“You’ve got the stupidity of youth. If you want to make it anywhere in the Ministry, you have to grow up.”
Gavra told him he understood, then looked out the window down the length of Sultanahmet Park to the domes and minarets of the Blue Mosque topped by sunlight and proved that he didn’t understand at all by saying, “But this isn’t the most sensitive of jobs. All we’re doing is picking him up from the airport.”
Brano Sev didn’t answer at first. He took a long breath, the kind he took when gathering patience. The Comrade Lieutenant General, a big man who tended to speak in fraternal shouts, once pulled Gavra aside and explained that Brano had never wanted to take on a 29-year-old pupil. But don’t worry, the head of the Ministry told him, he’s an old man who knows much more than he’s able to do, and we’ve made the decision for him.
Brano Sev exhaled, glanced in the rearview, and spoke slowly. “Just suppose that we arrived late. Libarid Terzian’s plane has let him off and he’s had a half hour to stand around in the arrivals lounge, waiting for us.”
“He can take care of himself, Comrade Sev.”
“I’m not disputing that,” said Brano. “He’s a homicide inspector; he knows how to protect himself. But let’s say he’s had a half hour to consider his options. Let’s say he decided he didn’t want to return home. Do you know how simple it is to lose yourself in Istanbul?”
“But he has a family. That’s why he was chosen for the conference. That’s why he was issued an external passport.”
“How do you know he loves his family?”
For some reason, Gavra had never considered that possibility.
“Twenty years ago,” Brano explained, “Comrade Terzian embarked on a rather reckless affair with another militiaman’s wife. Though it didn’t last, he has admitted more than once that this woman was the love of his life. But, since she was no longer available-she decided to stay with her husband-he married Zara Sasuni and has built a life he probably never really desired. It wouldn’t be so strange if he wanted to leave this life.”
Brano paused to let the story sink in.
“You see, Gavra, no matter how many electric ears we place, no matter how many feet of film we have on them, we never know what’s going on. Up here.” He tapped his temple and turned onto Kennedy Caddesi. Off to the left, the Sea of Marmara opened up, sprinkled with freighters.
Ataturk International Airport was a long, low building west of Istanbul, in a barren, burnt-grass corner of Yesilkoy. Brano parked in the middle of the lot, and as Gavra followed him inside, he noticed how the old man glanced around in an unconscious fashion, and how he didn’t even register the man with a cart of drinks who sang his price to them. In the arrivals lounge, Brano scanned the board marking planes and times. Gavra peered over his shoulder. “See? It’s late.”
The board didn’t say how late Turkish Air Flight 54 was, so Brano spoke with a girl at the information desk while Gavra lit a cigarette. Families wandered and settled heavily on chairs, waiting for the delayed plane. Brano returned, running his tongue behind his lips. “She says they don’t know how long.”
“Here, have a cigarette.”
“You see that man over there?”
Gavra followed his gaze to the corner. Beside a potted mullein stood a small man in his late twenties with a wire-thin mustache out of a comic book. “What about him?”
“His name’s Ludvik Mas. What’s he doing here?”
“Why don’t you go ask him?”
Brano gave him a look he’d seen too many times on this trip already.
Gavra bought two coffees from the singing vendor and handed one to Brano. Ludvik Mas, still in the corner, looked at his watch. “He’s waiting for the same flight,” Gavra pointed out.
Brano ignored his perceptiveness. “Come on.”
They walked back to the information desk, where a policeman had joined the clerk.
“Hello,” Brano said in English. “I’m waiting for Flight 54.”
